About 78 years after his killing in Cyprus, the Israeli army announced the location of the burial place of soldier Shlomo Haimson, who was killed by British guards in 1948 during an attempt to escape from a concentration camp, before his remains were transferred to Israel in 1970 and buried with others as he was unidentified, thus ending a case that had remained open for decades.
According to a report by journalist Nitzan Shapira on the Israeli “N12” website, the Israeli army announced this morning that it was able to determine the location of Haimson’s grave after a long investigation in which military and official bodies participated.
The report indicated that Haimson was killed in 1948 by British guards in a concentration camp in Cyprus, before his remains were transferred to Israel in 1970 and buried anonymously in a cemetery in Haifa.
After an extensive investigation conducted by the Missing Persons Locating Branch of the Israeli Army’s Casualties Department and the Military Rabbinate, in cooperation with the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the Cyprus Migrants Association, it was found that Haimson was buried in the section designated for immigrants within the Haifa Cemetery.
The investigation determined the exact location of the grave, which is grave No. 11 in row 2.
Haimson was among the immigrants who were detained and deported to Cyprus, and he was shot dead by guards at the British Karaulus concentration camp during an attempt to escape from the camp on the night of September 29 to 30, 1948.
Following his murder, Haimson was buried in the Jewish cemetery in the Cypriot town of Margo.
In 1970, the remains of those buried in the Margot Cemetery were transferred to Israel, but the lack of sufficient identifying information at that time led to most of them being buried in the Haifa Cemetery as unidentified.
Haymson’s burial place remained undetermined throughout the following decades, until a recent investigation was able to link the available information to grave No. 11 in Row 2 of the section designated for immigrants.
The Israeli authorities informed the family of Haimson, who currently resides in Brazil, of the results of the investigation and the location of his burial, approximately 78 years after his murder.
Thus, a historical case is closed that began with a bullet inside a British concentration camp in Cyprus in 1948, and continued with the transfer of unidentified remains to Israel more than two decades later, before finally ending with identifying Haimson’s grave and informing his family of its location.
